FEN: “ELEMENTAL (PART 1: MOURNING EARTH)”

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Aug 312026
 

(We begin a new week at NCS with Daniel Barkasi’s review of a new album by the UK black metal band Fen, recently released by Prophecy Productions.)

The UK black metal scene is one of vibrance and diversity in approach. Of the long-standing members of that geographical scene, Fen stands alongside Saor and Winterfylleth as the most eclectic of the bunch, with today’s subject being a prolific example of never making the same album twice, choosing to continuously take risks over familiar stylistic comfort.

Since releasing their astounding and ever-relevant debut The Malediction Fields back in 2009 to throw the black metal hordes on their proverbial heads, it’s been a harrowing journey since, with a wide array of sonic shifts and creative swerves. That album will always be a special one for yours truly, and having witnessed it played in full at Fortress Festival remains a core memory.

Masterworks such as the seminal Dustwalker and the bitingly dynamic The Dead Light are also foundational works in the history of atmospheric black metal, pushing boundaries while bludgeoning with an endless cavalcade of riffs. 

Others didn’t land quite as close to those established heights, though all have their place in Fen‘s story. With the benefit of hindsight, each at minimum contain massive standout moments; Carrion Skies took the impossible task of quickly following Dustwalker and is altogether a great record, but not quite reaching the legendary status of its predecessor, where the experimental, proggy Winter has over time been a release that we’ve grown to appreciate more and more. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KOSTNICA, LAUGH TRACK, OAKENTHRONE, I HELVETE, THERMIDOR, HALO OF TEETH

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Aug 302026
 

(written by Islander)

As I did yesterday morning, I began today by again bleakly staring at my enormous list of links for new music. I could hear the list chortling at me. “You fool,” it muttered in between cackles, “you won’t even scratch the surface.” The truth of that mockery made it no less degrading. (Let’s put aside any concerns about hearing voices from a typed list.)

On days like this I often resort to time-savers, one of which is to prioritize recommendations from people I trust, a kind of life-line to a beleaguered soul.

(The Associated Press reports that on this day in 1916 explorer Ernest Shackelton successfully returned to Elephant Island in Antarctica to rescue 22 of his stranded crew members, who had survived on the barren island for four and a half months after the sinking of their ship, the Endurance. I feel this is not a coincidence.)

The recommendations proved to be worthy. Beyond those I resorted to impulse, and fortune smiled upon my scattershot urges. Here are the resulting choices I made for today; if you think of yourself as a trve cvlt listener, be forewarned that many of them challenge black metal orthodoxy in varying (and very interesting) ways: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MANNVEIRA, LUGUBRIOUS GARMENT, MORGUE, BEATEN TO DEATH, NO GRAVE, CASA DE PIQUE, FLAGELO, FEAR FACTORY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 292026
 

(written by Islander)

This happened to be a week when I paid a lot of attention to the emergence of new songs and videos. In my case, what that means is saving links and making lists instead of actually listening and watching. I don’t know why I do this. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, given that the result is just a gigantic string of band names and links staring me in the face on Saturday mornings like this one. I guess it’s further evidence that I have a bit of OCD in my makeup, though “a bit of OCD” probably isn’t a term that clinicians use; I’m wary of finding out what their actual diagnosis might be.

Anyway, the list stared at me and I stared back. A few notable names caught my eye, along with a notable piece of artwork, and so I checked those out. They were all winners, and that greatly speeded my task. I also added one of the few songs on the list that I actually listened to last week; I knew even then that it had to be here.

But I started the morning with music from the two Colombian bands you’ll find below, two bands I didn’t know about until receiving a recommendation for them a few days ago. And then the last thing I heard before finishing the selection is also the last song and video in this grouping — yet another notable name.

The word of the day, by the way, is “pandemonium”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOMBSTALKER — “IRON WITHIN IRON WITHOUT”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 282026
 

(written by Islander)

We have some history with the Kentucky band Tombstalker, starting with an article back in 2012 about metal in Kentucky (here), following that the next year (here) with a review of their self-titled EP, then including some commentary in 2015 about their fine and ferocious debut album Black Crusades, and then gleefully helping spread the word here in 2017 about a new Tombstalker EP named Chaotic Devotion.

Today we renew our support of Tombstalker’s music with the premiere of a song from their forthcoming second album, the aptly titled Chaos Monolith, which will be released in various formats on September 25th by Awakening Records, Adirondack Black Mass Records, and Bat Magick Records. The song you’re about to hear is “Iron Within Iron Without“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HARD LESSONS — “GANGRENE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 282026
 

(written by Islander)

On September 5th KingSide Records will release a new EP by the Danish metallic hardcore band Hard Lessons. It’s a six-track attack named Influx of Betrayal. One song from the EP (“Insufferable“) has already launched, and today Hard Lessons are releasing a second one, and we’re premiering a video for it just now.

The name of this new song, which features a guest appearance by No Grave, is “Gangrene“. In some ways it’s a sonic manifestation of infection, but it’s also a raging remedy for the rot. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SKUMSTRIKE — “MASTERY OF SIN”

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Aug 272026
 

(written by Islander)

When you name your metal band Skumstrike you’re not trying to hide the ball. You’re sending a very clear signal that the music will make no pretenses to artistic refinement, thought-provoking intellect, or avant-garde experimentation. Instead, it brandishes the idea of leaping from the gutter, unclean to the bone, and attacking with no holds barred. But what kind of musical attack do they launch?

This Montreal trio gave us a ferocious idea of their attack with a 2022 debut album named Deadly Intrusions (well-named, that one), and now they’re reinforcing those deadly impressions with a second album titled Flawless Intrigue from Hell, which will be released by their new label Dying Victims Productions on September 25th.

As vividly described in the PR materials, the new music “combines a lethal dose of speed metal with the gunpowder roar of thrash and death metal,” “cross-contaminating the wild fury of Japan’s Sabbat with the abandon of early Slayer and Bathory“.

Those aren’t empty words, as you’ll discover for yourselves through our premiere of the album’s second single, “Mastery of Sin“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PYRE OF DESCENT — “LOVE’S SOMBRE DEATH”

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Aug 272026
 

(written by Islander)

In early 2020 we hosted the premiere of a thought-provoking debut EP by the Berlin-based band Pyre of Descent. Later that same year they released another EP (Love’s Sombre Death), and now they have a debut album named Albedo that’s headed for release by two labels and the band this coming September.

The new album is described by one of those labels as “a mature form of occult/dark rock with some post-punk and gothic sensibilities, somewhere at the intersection of Fields of the Nephilim, The Devil’s Blood, and Aluk Todolo.” Based on that description alone, you can guess that it’s a fork in the road leading away from many of our usual beaten paths here, though not entirely divergent (as you will see).

One song from the album has been revealed already, and today we premiere a second one, “Love’s Sombre Death (Canto II)“. Continue reading »

PRIVATE PRISONS – THEO LACY

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 262026
 

(Andy Synn condemns you all to suffer with the new album from Private Prisons)

You know us here at NCS (and if you don’t, why not?)… when it comes to writing about new music we’ll almost always favour writing about lesser-known bands over bigger and more notorious names.

It’s become almost a perverse sort of compulsion at this point, letting other sites (for the most part, anyway) handle the “big hitters” while we focus on the weirdos, freaks, and underdogs (not always in that order).

And today’s review is a prime example of this, because nothing says “underground” than the visceral, venom-spewing blackened sludgery of Private Prisons.

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SRPNTS — “INTER LIMINA”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 262026
 

(written by Islander)

Today we help introduce listeners to the German black metal band SRPNTS, a band formed from the ashes of the group Zwielicht after their bassist Veit Benning died in 2024. Their debut album Second Shape is now set for release by Serpent Sun Records (UK) on October 2nd of this year.

The album’s name manifests its occult inspirations and objectives, a work shaped by nihilism, Gnostic opposition, and the alchemical principle of solve et coagula. We’ll share some of what we’ve received regarding the intent behind the music:

The title Second Shape refers to transformation after dissolution. The state that remains after the first form has been stripped, burned and sacrificed. The album is not meant as a narrative of salvation but as a passage through loss, negation and occult illvmination, where the old self is not healed or restored but abandoned and reformed into something colder, clearer and self-willed.

Its imagery revolves around thresholds, false cosmic order, fire as revelation, the Serpent as initiator and the final act of coagulation. The outline of a new form rising from the Void.

To help further introduce SRPNTS and their music, today we’re presenting a song from Second Shape named “Inter Limina“. Continue reading »

CLEARING THE SLATE ISSUE THREE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 262026
 

(Our writer DGR has been playing catch-up on records released earlier this year when other distractions interfered with writing about them. In mid-July he delivered Issue One (which you can find here), earlier this month he presented Issue Two (here), and now we have Issue Three encompassing reviews of four records released in March, April, May, and August.)

Over the years I’ve noticed a sort of lethargy develops when I reach the end of some sort of media consumption or project completion. The ‘Done-ness’ of it all seems to take it out of me and I wind up strangely tired for the rest of the day. I notice this more often with my videogame hobby than most, as I’ll often reach the end of some game I’ve been playing my way through – often side by side with the many albums I take a swing at writing about – and wind up tired by the end of it.

I once saw someone positing that it’s a sort of decompression, because your brain has been interacting so long with that specific ‘world’ that it is a sort of loss now that it’s over. I’ve found I do the same thing with albums and books too; albums in an equally odd circumstance because I often wind up writing about them afterward, like putting a neat little bow on a story arc and tying it off. I then walk away from the writing part of it just as tired, such that every review after a while feels like an exorcism.

The difficult part, then, is that what I should be doing is getting started on the next thing, because your writing skill is an engine that if you let rust from disuse becomes harder and harder to start up each time. Yet, keeping the machine rolling runs against my long-simmering philosophy of not just completely severing ties with any particular piece of art, because the practice of continual writing and reviewing so easily becomes more of a high score board of ‘look how much I listened to!’ It all feels surface-level at that point. Did you really listen to it if you’ve got 150 other releases on your docket for this month? Or does it count at about the same level as the music playing in your local supermarket for all of the effect it had on you? Continue reading »

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